the divine meditation newsletter: A dog named compassion
In 2015, I adopted a puppy who was found abandoned in the mountains of North Georgia with her brother. A local community member found them and brought them back to Atlanta. At a house party, I learned the story of how both puppies were found alone in a ditch, somehow surviving their first five months of life.
She and her brother were staying at a close friend’s queer communal house, awaiting adoption. I went to visit them to see about adopting one of them. My soon-to-be-soulmate was bumbling over the dining table trying to get at any and all food. A Taurus. She had a gentle softness in her eyes and cheeks like puppies do, paired with a focus and determination in her spirit that I admired.
“If you wait for every part of you to be on board with some big change, you’ll be waiting for a long time.”– Dennis Tirch, quoted in Jessica Dore’s Tarot for Change
When you make one of the most meaningful decisions of your life, not all of you is on board. I was enlivened by the realization that I could finally afford to adopt a dog and that I had the space in my life for one. It was like suddenly remembering you’re the adult now, and you are the person who gives yourself permission to do what you want, not some power outside of you. But there was a small percentage of me that remained unsure. This decision felt so unknown and different from the fantasy of what my future dog would be (i.e. a wolf dog who was over half my size). Thank god I didn’t let uncertainty and fantasy keep me from committing to the best real thing.
Luckily, there were great clues and evidence scattered throughout my life that directed me to adopt her anyway. I had wanted a dog since I was old enough to imagine the kind of life I wanted. I had my head in a book about dogs through most of my adolescence. I bonded with any dog I met. Even the first lie I can remember telling was that my family owned two golden retrievers, they just happened to “live at my neighbor’s house.”
I didn’t know all of what it would take to parent this puppy, but I had this foundation of evidence.
I didn’t know ours would be a spiritual relationship, but I knew my youngest practices of prayer and spellcasting was picturing life with a dog friend by my side.
I adopted the puppy and named her Karuna. I first learned the word when a former roommate sent me a meditation talk by Thich Nhat Hanh, on the four immeasurable minds, one of which is karuna. Karuna is a Pali word which roughly translates to “compassion.” I was drawn to both the sound of the word and its meaning, and I internally vowed to name my first child after this Buddhist virtue. 6 months later, I met Karuna and realized my parenting journey was about to begin.
“Compassion contains deep concern. You know the other person is suffering, so you sit close to her. You look and listen deeply to her to be able to touch her pain. You are in deep communication, deep communion with her, and that alone brings some relief.
We need to be aware of the suffering, but retain our clarity, calmness, and strength so we can help transform the situation. The ocean of tears cannot drown us if karuna is there.” —Thich Nhat Hanh
Looking back, I wonder if I placed the virtue in her name to keep it close to me; a constant reminder of what I would need to draw on in times of suffering. A name I would call, and sometimes shriek, over and over again, like some kind of cowboy mantra practice. It was likely a tradition I picked up from my parents, who named me Sumita, meaning a “good friend.” Friendship and building community was something that appeared to come to them both naturally, but was like anything else, a practice. It’s the power of so many immigrants, to create belonging, when belonging isn’t a given.
To live in this world, I knew I needed compassion, like my parents knew they needed good friends. And a dog named Karuna was undoubtedly here to write the poetry of compassion with her life story.
A couple years into her life, Karuna started showing signs of reactivity with other dogs. Her friendly behavior at the dog park switched and she began attacking other dogs. Like many parents, in hindsight I wish I had handled this differently. Instead of isolating her, I wish I had started training with her and developing her doggy socializing skills. That didn’t happen. I was caught up in the highs and lows of a tortured romantic relationship, financially struggling from being unemployed after grad school, and lacking the daily structure I needed in my own life.
It was when I was single and moved home to Durham and created a daily ritual that centered Karuna, that our bond really grew and I felt a calmness restored in both myself and her. I often say that Karuna seems like my daughter and my grandmother in one being. Had my childhood dream of having a dog really been the dream of reparenting my younger self with the wisdom of my future self?
Even after years of training, Karuna is reactive with other dogs. On her 9th birthday, I had a session with an animal communicator, Rain Hummingbird, to see if she had any insight about Karuna’s reactivity. “She was petrified,” Rain said of Karuna’s first months of life when she was abandoned and surviving with her sibling. I teared up, thinking of Karuna’s deep eyes which carried this original fear and sadness after all these years.
Rain offered that while there were ways to perhaps reduce Karuna’s fear-based aggression, I would need to accept her as she is given her history. She shared how badly the reactivity also felt for Karuna. “It feels bad for her too. But she’s just not the kind of dog that is going to get along with everybody,” said Rain. I suddenly understood why my first dog wasn’t a happy-go-lucky golden retriever. ‘I don’t get along with everybody either,’ I thought to myself. Hearing her say this about Karuna was like permission to accept the parts of myself I rejected or wished were different. After the session, I was sick for a week, feeling mutated by the reading.
Of course I knew Karuna’s story, but could I accept that it had changed her? I wanted to ‘fix’ what was hard about her; to get rid of the shame and embarrassment I felt from her reactivity. But parenting her and reparenting myself meant being with the pain and seeing it with a gentle kindness, not trying to get rid of it, or avoid getting close to those fears within myself. It meant being with the discomfort of our imperfections, and the freedom gained by knowing this too belongs.
“There is more to me than the pain I am feeling right now, I am also the heartfelt response to that pain. When we are moved by how difficult life is in the moment, somehow that moment isn’t as difficult as it was just a second ago.”
–Kristen Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself
I did, after all, put my life instructions in her name. A dog named compassion was my instruction to be devoted to self-compassion.
I had been taught in so many ways as a South Asian person that your worth is found in how you are better than others (or less than others), which makes any perceived imperfection a threat to that self-worth. It’s a sense of worth which removes us from our common humanity; the dehumanizing effects of an ancient caste system on our psyches. But that kind of separation can’t survive in the face of karuna/compassion. In the inevitable moments where I wish things were different, self-compassion reminds me that I’m a vulnerable and flawed human just like everyone else.
Recently, Karuna seriously injured her back leg while running in the snow. The injury happened quickly and she has been unable to use that leg. I was upset and lamenting that a brief moment of play had resulted in such a major injury, trying to keep at bay an old story that pleasure = something bad happening. On top of that, the vet informed me that the torn ligament wouldn’t heal on its own and would require a $6,000 surgery. I shook my head at the younger me who thought they’d never spend that much money on a dog, a callous feeling-less version I had forecasted, and the opposite of what I was about to do.
As I struggled to accept this reality, I watched as Karuna popped up the next morning, ready as ever for her walks, immediately adjusting to the three-legged life. She was just as present with sniffing the ground and being in the elements; a poster child for “don’t let them steal your joy.” The injured leg was causing her pain, but she wasn’t adding suffering to her suffering. I was inspired and grateful for this in-house reminder that I didn’t have to suffer beyond what’s already hard.
The Buddha referred to our reactions to our suffering as the “second arrow:”
“The Buddha described two arrows. The first arrow is the natural experience that arises in this human animal that we are, for example: fear, aggression, greed, craving. The second arrow is self-aversion for the fact of the first arrow. [...] The Buddha says: ‘The first arrow hurts, why do we shoot the second arrow into us, ourselves?’ And yet we do.
He goes on to say: ‘In life, we cannot always control the first arrow; however, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.’ The first arrow arises from causes and conditions beyond our control. But when we learn to release the judgment and self-blame that we experience in response to the first arrow, the second arrow becomes completely avoidable.” –Tara Brach
As I watched Karuna move towards life amidst injury, I knew her behavior was a prophetic lesson for me. There’s power in not making ourselves suffer more than we already do. There’s freedom in our self-compassion.
I am afraid that those in the Trump administration would rather annihilate us, than face their own brokenheartedness. We can’t follow their lead, if we want to become a more compassionate world. We can decondition from the patriarchal lie that our self-kindness is weak and unproductive. We can show ourselves mercy and do our part to relieve the world of the second arrow of suffering. We can take accountability for the hurt and harm we cause, when we remember that we aren’t less human because of it.
If you’re like me, everyday you’re granted with small moments where you can decide to meet fear with compassion. Karuna reminds me that we have the power to not make our experience harder than it already is. Like her, there will be times when we are petrified, at both real and perceived threats. We will bark at ourselves or each other. And we will need the healing voice of compassion to help us face ourselves and set us free. To know we are not only the pain, but the open heart that cares for our deepest hurts. You cannot cage a compassionate spirit. “The ocean of tears cannot drown us if karuna is there.”